


The Doctor Is In

by AcidicRobot



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Major Character Injury, Medical Procedures, Requited Unrequited Love, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Violence, its sort of resolved, no anaesthetic, tagging things is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 20:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18431492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcidicRobot/pseuds/AcidicRobot
Summary: She ignores him, rolling her eyes as she rummages. Rhys watches from the corner of his eye and looks bewildered when she pulls out a thick strap of leather.“Uh…” his voice is small, confusion obvious. “What’s that for?”“It’s to bite,” she tells him, sounding a bit confused herself, because it should be obvious.What else would it be for, dummy?“Incase you’re gonna scream. Extra psychos are probably the last thing we need right now so it’s better if you just muffle it.”He stares at her for a second before sighing, dropping his head back down and squeezing his eyes shut. “Right, of course,” he mutters, “of course its for biting when I scream. God, when I get off this planet I’m gonna…”---Rhys and Patch get seperated from the others when they get ambushed. Rhys gets injured, badly, and Patch has to fix him up. Turns out that surgery without any painkillers can be pretty difficult for everybody involved. Heavy hurt/comfort.





	The Doctor Is In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moobloom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moobloom/gifts).
  * Inspired by [This is Bigger Than You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18381305) by [moobloom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moobloom/pseuds/moobloom). 



> Listen, I know it sounds really horrible and angsty, and it is in parts, but it also has that typical Borderlands humour mixed in, as well as a fair amount of fluff and hurt/comfort. There isn't graphic violence, but there is graphic description of injuries and medical procedures, so if that isn't your thing then proceed with caution.  
> Tagged mature for some swearing, some blood and injuries, all that good stuff. If you want me to add any tags then just go ahead and leave a comment. 
> 
> Once again, Patch is a character made by my friend Howdylovelies! She has a story called This Is Bigger Than You which has more of her character if you're interested in her, and I know I'll be writing more of her and the Borderlands Gang later on.

There had been too many, more than expected. Psychos and raiders came pouring out of every available crack in the mountains, practically climbing over themselves to try and get a chance to stab at them. One psycho had even screamed that he wanted to suck Sasha’s eyeballs right out of her skull, but didn’t get the chance to, because Fiona had shot him right through the neck and he had crumpled to the ground.

They had fought them off for a while (at least a whole minute), but they had been forced into a corner and trying to stay and fight them all off would have just ended up with their guts strewn across the dirty. Maybe their heads would have become some kinda horrific decoration, or fashioned into a hood ornament.

So they decide that it’d be better off running, and hoping that they’re able to regroup at the caravan later on, all in one piece. Patch bounds over the wreckage of a bandit car, small legs carrying her as fast and as far as she can. She’s only aware of Rhys joining her when a psycho lunges for her but is stopped by a robotic hand, a surprising act of competency coming from a disaster like Rhys. She sees him reel back and his fist meets the psycho right in the throat, and then they’re dragging each other along and away from the bloodbath. From the sounds of it, a lot of the psychos have decided to ignore them and have just started fighting amongst themselves, which is confusing but she doesn’t really have the time to think about that right now.

Patch hears frantic shouting, Fiona yelling something out that’s barely legible over the crazed screams of the psychos. She’s pretty sure she caught a glimpse of Sasha dragging Vaughn behind her as they ran, ducking and weaving between rocks and corpses. Fiona must have followed after them, because she’s nowhere to be seen now and she was already practically glued to Sasha’s side, and Patch is really hoping that they all managed to get out.

On the other hand, having someone else here, anyone else, would be really _really_ good. Because here she is running alongside Rhys, covered in blood, and a shot is ringing out from somewhere and suddenly there’s a lot more blood. Viscera sprays around her and she isn’t sure who it belongs to. Rhys yells out, a strangled gasp, and then he’s stumbling and falling to the ground.

It takes a while to notice he’s fallen because adrenaline is running through her whole body, to the point where she feels almost sick with it, but then it’s like ice water was forced down her throat and is violently splashed all over her heart and stomach. She stumbles and pivots on her feet, almost tripping over, and sprints back to where Rhys has collapsed.

“Rhys!” Her first instinct is to shake him, smack him, anything to get him up and running again, away from the raiders that are still chasing after them. “Come _on_ , get up! _Rhys_!”

Her head whips back and forth from Rhys to the oncoming psychos, and she barely has enough time to grasp for her pistol and whip around, shooting haphazardly. A bullet catches one of them in the chest, which is enough for them to trip over and halts the others. It gives her enough time to turn back to Rhys and shake him, even though he’s probably seriously injured and shouldn’t be shook.

“Come on, man, we’ve gotta go!”

She hooks one of his arms around her shoulders, to keep him upright (which is difficult because he’s a fair bit taller than she is), but then he’s groaning and they both manage to stumble away, Patch occasionally twisting around to fire off more shots at the raiders.

They’re running for maybe two minutes at the most when Patch deems it safe to stop and slow down, out of breath, legs aching. Her whole body feels jittery from the adrenaline. Now that they aren’t running for their lives, she has time to stop and reflect, try to get her bearings. _Psycho attack. Overpowered. Split up, me and Rhys. Running away. Gunshot. Falling._

Oh no. Oh god, oh no.

“Rhys?” Her voice is shaky as she addresses him, pulling away only to have him stumble and let out a strangled yell. It’s clearly just him trying to voice his pain, and he’s usually whiny at the best of times, but Patch is still concerned and rushes to his side.

“Freaking Pandora,” he grumbles, hand hovering over his side but not making contact. “There’s a whole lotta stuff to look out for on Helios but I’m p-pretty sure getting shot was never something I had to worry about!”

“C-calm down,” she tells him, feeling not very calm herself. She wills herself to focus, though. She’s a field medic, she patches people up, its what she does. Her hand rests on his arm, as steady as she can make it. “Move, I need to see what – “

The sight of it makes her clench her jaw in worry, because that is a lot of blood staining Rhys’ shirt and shes certain that most of it is his own. She twists her head to get a better look at the damage. His jacket is torn in places, ripped to shreds around his left side, and she’s hoping that the shotgun blast mostly just tore up his clothing instead of his vital organs. She lifts his arm and winces when she sees that the wound takes up most of his hip, dangerously close to his stomach.

 “Is it bad?” he asks, eyes clenched shut tightly, left arm hovering over her awkwardly in the air. His other arm is raised to his chest, hand wrapped around his neck. Knowing Rhys, its probably so he can hide his face in the crook of his elbow if need be.

She swallows thickly, the hot Pandoran sun glaring down at her, causing sweat to run down her face. “I can’t really tell yet,” she says, trying to keep any tremors out of her voice. “It doesn’t look that serious but you- you’re gonna have to lie down so I can ch-check it properly.”

He nods, but only slightly. She steps back and realises that he looks a lot worse than previously thought. Blood has spread over the entire left side of his shirt and is drenching the bottom of it, and Rhys keeps swaying back and forth, looking paler by the second.

“Just here,” she says, guiding him down onto the ground, but not before she shrugs off her coat and puts it down for him to lay on. He struggles to lay properly, and it worries her that he isn’t complaining, because it means something must be pretty wrong.

“Ouch, ouch,” he mutters, breathing in sharply and then coughing when sharp pain wracks through his body. Patch frowns, swallows again when she sees new flecks of blood on his chin. “God, it’s bad, isn’t it? Oh shit, don’t tell me I’m gonna die here of all places.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I dunno,” he says, now fully lying down. He doesn’t protest when patch starts fiddling with the edges of his clothing and starts pulling them away from the wound. Her nimble fingers are shaking slightly, but otherwise do a decent job. “Just thought I would die in a cooler way. Blaze of glory and all that.”

“You don’t really come off as a ‘blaze of glory’ kinda guy…”

“What? Well what’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” she assures him, followed by the loud rip of his shirt and Rhys’ chest exposed to her. She might try and savour the moment if Rhys wasn’t suffering from a potentially fatal shotgun wound.

She was right in thinking that the wound was worse than previously thought. Shrapnel is embedded into his skin, metal and scrap of varying sizes piercing his flesh. There’s a big chunk of it that managed to get pretty damn deep, leaving a gory hole behind that is gonna need stitches.

It’s spread out all on his left side, stretching from his waist to an inch or two below his nipple, and the worst of it is just in his hip (no vital organs, so that’s good). His shredded skin looks raw and red, inflamed and like if she doesn’t do something in the next few minutes, it’ll become infected. Blood is all over his skin, dark and shiny in the sun, dripping down onto her jacket.

“I’ll need to patch you up here,” she explains, trying not to sound grim. “It’d be better at the caravan but who knows how long until we get there, you’d probably just, uh… You know with the… Blood loss…” Her voice trails off into mumbles, and she sort of hopes Rhys didn’t hear that last part.

“Can’t you just give me one of those red needle thingies?” His voice is strained, but he can still talk, which is a good sign.

“Don’t have any,” she explains, words tinged with panic, “and that might heal up wounds but it won’t just magically remove all this dang shrapnel.”

She’s already started hurriedly searching all her pockets and satchels for supplies, hoping to God that she didn’t accidentally leave anything in the caravan that morning. It must startle Rhys, because he’s craning his head up to get a better look, moving his elbows under him to properly lean up. She goes to stop him (she knows that he’d be better off not seeing his injury altogether), but its too late. His eyes go wide, and his face turns a shade paler.

“Oh, God, that’s –“ He coughs wetly, blood spraying out of his mouth and over his chin. The way he rasps for breath afterwards is somehow even worse, struggling to breathe, clenching his teeth and simultaneously trying his hardest to just _breathe_. She drops her bag and lays her hands on his shoulders, pushing him back to lie down.

“Shh, Rhys,” she makes her voice lower, but clear enough that he can hear it. “Turn your head to the side so you can just uh… spit out all the blood.”

He does just that, coughing again and getting crimson saliva down the side of his face and all over the dirt next to him. She cringes, turns back to her equipment. She’ll need tweezers, anaesthetic, needle and thread, bandages and ointment to keep it clean… She finds most of it, stored away in her pockets, but most of her good supplies are back at the caravan. Rhys can’t walk in this condition, and she can’t exactly carry him.

“Okay,” she says, turning to him with a cloth and the tweezers. “So… Do you want me to like, keep you updated on what I’m doing? Or uh, just do it? Cause some of my clients are – “

“ _God_ , Patch,” he groans through gritted teeth. “It feels like I’m _burning_ , just- hurry up and do whatever you’re gonna do!”

“Okay, okay, right.” She crawls over until she’s right by his side, and breathes out shakily. “I gotta give you a n-needle first… Just… Hold on… ”

Her anaesthetic is in a pouch of its own, bottles that look shiny and valuable, like little vials of gold. She fishes it out of her satchel, along with a clean needle, holds it up in the sunlight so she can read the instructions. Her heart sinks.

“Uhh… Rhys?”

“What?” His breathing is laboured, fingers twitching where they’re resting at his sides.

“The… I- I don’t know if- Do you think you’d be okay with d-doing this without any painkillers…?”

“ _What_?” His body tenses up like he’s about to bolt upwards, but thinks better of it at the last second. He settles for just shooting her a look of manic disbelief.

“Um – Well, the rest of the anaesthetic is back in the caravan.”

“So? You have some right there, don’t you?”

“I- I’ve usually just had to sew myself up, I- I don’t- Gosh, I don’t think this is gonna be enough anaesthetic…”

“What?! You don’t carry enough anaesthetic for a _single person_?!”

“Hey I don’t – You’re _tall_! Taller than _me_!” She’s frantic, eyes wide, hair a frazzled mess and spattered with dark blood. “I didn’t think I’d have to be _doing_ something like th-this! And it isn’t just your size, you have all that Echo stuff! It messes with the way your body tolerates painkillers and medicine, I don’t- Gosh – “

“No, no, hey,” his voice loses its sharp edge, but he’s clearly nervous. His whole body seems to be thrumming with anxious energy. “Look just, don’t worry about the painkiller stuff. I just wanna get the hell out of this heat and meet back up with the others, and then we can get back to the caravan and you can fix me up properly.”

She nods, thankful that he’s thinking clearly and not cursing her out. Her breath comes a bit more evenly, now, because Rhys is aware that this isn’t gonna be fancy, top-dollar surgery, and if she can just hurry up and get him in a condition to walk again, they’ll be fine.

Besides,” he adds, “its just picking some stuff out, right? I’m sure its nothing I can’t handle.”

That gives her pause. “Yeah, you’ll do great,” she says, hoping he doesn’t pick up on her blatant lie.

She preps the needle and wipes away the blood from a patch of skin, pressing it into his flesh and ignoring his whines. He’ll still feel it, that’s for sure, but hopefully it’ll do something, anything, to help him.

_Okay. You’ve done this a hundred times before. Just because you actually know Rhys, and care about him, doesn’t change the fact that he’s someone you need to work on. Just focus._

She leans in close, zeroing in on a piece of shrapnel that’s close to the surface, when she freezes and goes back to her bags.

“Patch,” Rhys whines, throwing an arm over his face. “Stop keeping me in suspense! If you’re gonna do something then just do it.”

She ignores him, rolling her eyes as she rummages. Rhys watches from the corner of his eye and looks bewildered when she pulls out a thick strap of leather.

“Uh…” his voice is small, confusion obvious. “What’s that for?”

“It’s to bite,” she tells him, sounding a bit confused herself, because it should be obvious. _What else would it be for, dummy?_ “Incase you’re gonna scream. Extra psychos are probably the last thing we need right now so it’s better if you just muffle it.”

He stares at her for a second before sighing, dropping his head back down and squeezing his eyes shut. “Right, of course,” he mutters, “of _course_ its for biting when I _scream_. God, when I get off this planet I’m gonna…”

She lets him mumble, because she’s sure that it’ll only be a matter of minutes until he reaches for the leather and tries his hardest to muffle any yells. She sets it down next to his head where he can easily reach it, trying not to feel apprehensive. It’s one thing when she’s working on a patient back at her clinic, where the screaming would be annoying but just part of the job. It’s another thing with Rhys, someone she knows, and she’s sure that hearing his sounds of pain will stick with her.

She’s tempted to just shove the leather into his mouth so there’s no risk of him yelling at all. But he’s already here, shrapnel buried in his stomach, having to undergo emergency “surgery” with less anaesthetic than would be ideal. He should at least have the choice to use the strap to muffle himself.

_Okay. This is it. The real deal. No more delaying it, Patch, just gotta get to work before he loses anymore blood. Oh, eesh, that’s… He’s looking real pale. Pastier than usual._

She lifts the tweezers, sparing Rhys one last cursory glance. His eyes are squeezed shut, arm thrown over his face. She breathes out, places the tweezers right at the shrapnel wound, and starts lifting it out from where it’s stuck in his skin.

The effect is instant, Rhys inhaling sharply, but she can’t stop so she just furrows her brow and squeezes harder around the metal until it’s free from his body.

“Uh…” she starts, feeling kind of useless. “One down and a bunch to go!”

Rhys is gritting his teeth but doesn’t look like he’s about to scream or anything dumb like that.

“You’re doing great, Rhys,” she tells him quietly, and feels better when he relaxes visibly. “It won’t be long, I swear.”

It isn’t a lie. Removing shrapnel is something she has to do pretty often, and she’s gotten efficient at it. But she decides not to comment on how much it’s gonna hurt, because she honestly doesn’t know. Rhys is downright wimpy and pathetic on occasions, but she isn’t sure how much of that is due to a low pain tolerance, or just because he enjoys complaining.

She takes out the shallow pieces first, of which there are plenty, hands working with precision that she rarely possesses outside of fixing up injuries. With every bloodied metal shard she takes out, Rhys’ breath catches, or he winces, but he doesn’t go to grab the leather. Occasionally he whimpers, and his human hand is slapped over his mouth to stifle any noises that threaten to escape.

She remembers briefly that Rhys is Hyperion, and has (probably) never had to undergo any emergency medical procedures such as this one. The thought of him having to go through his whole life with minimal injuries and medical-related trauma seems a bit unbelievable, and make something like anger stir inside her, because it reminds her that Hyperion really is a company full of scumbags. But it also makes her feel… Sad, maybe, or guilty, or upset, because she really doesn’t want him to have to go through any more pain than he has to.

Gosh, her throat is dry. She would drink some of the water she has but she knows that Rhys needs it more. She adds one more piece of shrapnel to the growing pile of bloodied metal beside her, and then leans back, wiping her brow with the back of her hand.

“Okay,” she says, mostly to herself. She clears her throat and addresses Rhys. “How you doin’?”

It takes him a moment to respond, breathing shallow. “Just peachy,” he says, clearly not peachy. “God, how much longer? Because you’re doing a good job and all, probably, but this isn’t really – “ he pauses, breath hitching, “ – how I wanted to spend my afternoon.”

“I took out most of the small pieces but… There are some big ones that might hurt, like, I don’t know how much those first ones hurt but uh, y-you might need to bite down on something, s-“

Patch is startled when Rhys makes a sudden noise akin to a sob, and for a horrifying second she’s worried that he’s crying. She sits up instantly, grasping his arm and moving it away from his face. There aren’t any tears, but his face is one of anguish, and he looks so hopeless that it hurts. His brow is furrowed, a pinched expression of pain. He isn’t crying but he looks pretty damn close.

“Woah, hey hey hey,” she consoles quickly, putting the back of her hand against his cheek in a gesture that she hopes is comforting. “I know it h-hurts, I know, but- I promise I’ll take good care of you, okay?”

“ _Patch_ ,” he whines, breath hitching, and now she can see that his metal fingers are buried deep into the ground, leaving little divots from where he’s been clawing at the dirt beside him. “Please, I- I don’t-“

“What can I do to make it better?” She’s desperate at this point to help him, but knows that she probably won’t be able to. This would be so much easier if she just didn’t care. She knows that the best thing she could do is just leave him something to bite down on and then get back to work, but she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself afterwards.

“Just keep going,” he tells her, determined despite the struggle he’s going through. “Just- Get it over with.”

She nods, not sure if he can see her, grateful for his willingness to just keep going through the pain. At least he’s keeping a level head.

But once she focuses on a large piece of shrapnel, stuck deep in the soft flesh of his stomach, she’s sure that his resolve will shatter. Her hands are steady despite the way her heart hammers away at her chest, and she holds herself completely still when she lowers the tweezers to the shrapnel, grips it firmly, and starts pulling upwards.

“Augh!” Rhys lets out a yell and immediately seizes up. The metal arm starts clawing at the ground again, his eyes going wide, frantically darting from the sky to the side to his bloodied wound. “Fuck!”

Through some miracle, Patch manages to let go of the shrapnel and place her other hand firmly on Rhys’ stomach, in an attempt to hold him still. “R-Rhys,” she says, voice betraying the control she exhibits. “You need to b-be quiet!”

He nods frantically, squeezing his eyes shut. Patch pointedly eyes the leather strap next to him but says nothing, keeping one hand on his stomach and the other holding the tweezer, hovering over the shrapnel.

This time, she grasps onto the metal and doesn’t let go when Rhys starts convulsing again, his legs pushing against the ground and almost jostling her work. She ignores the guttural noises coming out of his throat, a bead of sweat running down her face as the metal gets snagged on his torn skin.

“ _Shit_ ,” she mutters under her breath, feeling faintly sick. She moves the hand on his stomach closer to the wound, presses her thumb in close to the broken skin in an attempt to get the metal free.

_“Ah, fuck_!” Rhys sounds in anguish now, eyes shut tight, and he can’t stop the whimpers that escape from his mouth, sounding like some animal that just got hit with a truck. A tear runs down his temple, teeth gritted and covered in blood. Patch yanks the shrapnel the rest of the way out and he groans, letting out a dry sob and then a shaky inhale of breath.

She makes a decision then, and moves quickly before Rhys can stop her. The huge shard of metal joins the pile and then she’s moving, reaching for the leather strap and then shoving it unceremoniously between his teeth. He bites down on it immediately but his eyes snap open and meet hers. Before she can open her mouth to apologise, his organic arm moves from his face to grab onto her wrist.

Her other arm jerks back at first, hand still clasped tightly around the tweezers. She doesn’t expect Rhys to attack but he’s semi-delirious and in pain, and it wouldn’t be the first time a client lashed out in the middle of surgery.

But instead, his hand scrambles upwards, trembling, until his palm is in hers and he’s squeezing and _oh_.

“O-Okay,” she assures him, because he still looks scared and in pain and she’s been too busy trying to keep it together to really offer much support. “It’s almost over, I p-promise. Just stick- Stick with me.”

He doesn’t answer, just clutches onto her hand for dear life and turns his head away.

She assesses the damage. Most of the shrapnel has been taken out, only a few large chunks remaining. Then clean it, disinfect, sew up the major cuts, slap some bandages on and call it a day. Easy.

She looks at his chest, his neck. Skin still pale, but blood loss isn’t her biggest concern. Infections are almost always present in shrapnel wounds, and could lead to more complications later on.

“Almost done, Rhys. You’re d-doing so good.”

She absently strokes a thumb over the back of his hand, squeezes it a bit when she’s ready to pull out another piece. This one goes easier, but it’s just as deep as doesn’t stop Rhys from making tiny noises of pain. The leather keeps him from yelling, gives him something to do besides claw at the ground, but she knows that he doesn’t want it. Whatever pride that he was clinging to was what prevented him from reaching for it in the first place, but Patch is sure that he’s grateful for her taking charge. At least later on he could excuse anything embarrassing as _doctors orders_.

He squeezes her hand to the point of pain but Patch keeps working, carefully pulling out another piece. _Gosh, that sun is hot_. She’s going to have bad sunburn after this.

“Just a few more,” she tells him, not bothering to give him an exact number because no matter what she says, it’s still going to be too much. He’s wrapped his metal arm around the top of his chest, maybe to shield some of his skin from the sun. “I’ll let you know when I – When the last piece is, uh. When I’m gonna take it out. Okay?”

He makes a noise of affirmation, and Patch isn’t sure if he actually understood what she was saying or not, but it doesn’t matter. At least he’s still responsive.

She tries to work as quick as possible without sacrificing any accuracy. Even though she only really needs one hand to remove the shrapnel, it’s hard focusing when Rhys is grasping onto her like this. Hard for multiple reasons. Mostly because she can’t steady herself, can’t manipulate his skin the way she needs to. And, though she isn’t quick to admit it, Rhys holding onto her hand is kind of nice, and it’d probably be a whole lot nicer if the circumstances were different.

 Can’t let that distract her now, though. There’ll be plenty of time for care and comfort later, once she’s finished this.

“Okay,” she says, biting her tongue in concentration. “This is the second last piece… One of them is probably gonna hurt more than the other so, uh… Which one do you want first?”

His whole body seems to deflate, but she looks up and sees him arch an eyebrow. He doesn’t move to take out the leather, just drops his head back down, and she takes that to mean that he couldn’t really care less.

“ _It’s not an unreasonable question_ ,” she mumbles, deciding to start on the less painful one. It’s a large, flat piece, but closer to the surface and not serrated like a lot of the others. It comes free with only a bit of minor struggle, Rhys’ fingers twitching around her own. His breathing has gotten slightly more even in the past minute or two, which Patch is relieved by. “Just one more, Rhys. You’re doin’ a real good job.”

The last piece of shrapnel glints in the sunlight, as if mocking her, buried deep in his hip. She swears, she’s gonna kill whichever one of those damn psychos did this. Well. They’re probably already dead, but that won’t stop her from being angry.

She grips it and starts moving it out and winces, disturbed when she feels it scrape against bone. Rhys gurgles something, leans to the side and spits the leather out, following by a whole mouthful of blood and saliva. She expects a scream or a yell, but he just pants, heaving. His whole face is covered in a fine sheen of sweat, looking sickly and pallid.

“Brace yourself,” she warns him, and starts pulling at it again. It scrapes against his hip bone and Rhys sways, looks like he might just vomit, or pass out, or both. Him passing out might make things easier, come to think of it. The metal is snagged on something and Patch is praying that it isn’t fully lodged in bone, and after a few seconds of wiggling and prying it comes free, and then its just sliding back through torn flesh and muscle and skin.

She holds it up for a moment, examining it, and then throws it over her shoulder into the pile with the others.

“That’s it,” she says, leaning down over him. Her thumb stays stroking his palm but he barely responds, just a hardly-there twitch of his fingers. “It’s all out, you did it, Rhys. You did good.”

Rhys looks absolutely wrecked. Dried blood and saliva gathers in the corners of his mouth, lips cracked from the unforgiving heat of the sun. He must have been biting his lip at one point because there’s a big cut right down the middle, red and angry. She’ll have to treat that later once they get back to the caravan. His skin is still sickly pale but not dangerously so, and the sweat on his face makes him look waxy and unnatural. Hair unkempt and sticking to his forehead, crackly from where blood had gotten in it and dried. Worst of all is his expression; completely out of it, stuck in a daze brought on by getting shot by some homemade shrapnel-shotgun contraption, and then having it all removed within half an hour of it all.

There’s something about the lack of scars and imperfections on his face that has Patch feeling uncomfortable. He isn’t used to this, to Pandora, to the violence and everything that comes with it. The way he looks now, almost broken, its enough to make something catch in her throat.

“Rhys?” she prods, gingerly placing her hand on his cheek. That’s enough to make him look, and he blinks a few times before the haze in his eyes clears up and he’s back again.

“All the shrapnel is out,” she repeats, uncertain if he heard her the first time. “I just need to disinfect it and…” She stops herself, trails off. She’ll need to sew up some of his worse wounds, but maybe it could wait a little while. Rhys doesn’t need to go through stitches without any anaesthetic… _Wait. What are you doing? Don’t be unprofessional, dummy._

She tries to think about it reasonably. Normally she would stitch them up now, but she doesn’t have all her equipment, they’d just end up shoddy and hey, her and Rhys had to walk to the caravan, so he would probably end up breaking them in the next fifteen minutes anyways.

“I need to disinfect it and bandage it up,” she decides, feeling good with her decision. She shouldn’t waste thread just to make stitches that she would just have to redo later. Besides, it’s just more time that he could end up getting the wounds infected. “And then we need to get back to the caravan. Gosh... I hope the others made it back okay…”

“They’ll be fine,” Rhys says, voice quiet and hoarse. “Fiona wouldn’t just leave that caravan behind, anyways. I’m convinced she likes it more than she likes me.”

Patch laughs at that, using her free hand to grab a cloth and the things she needs to clean him up. “ _So_ ,” she starts, feeling a bit jittery. “How was that?”

“Bad,” he says immediately, sounding downtrodden. He rests on his elbow so he can see her preparing her equipment. “But… You made it sort of bearable.”

“Only _sort of_?”

“That was a goddamn terrible experience and you know it. So making it bearable is a real achievement, trust me.”

She snickers at that, and he smiles, but something about it still feels wrong. There’s something behind his eyes that betrays the easy banter they exchange, and she knows that this is gonna stick with him. A part of her is glad that he sees this as abnormal, traumatic. Getting used to all the gore and violence of Pandora probably isn’t the healthiest thing. At least he seems more disturbed by it than she does.

“I, um. I kind of need my, uh, hand back.”

“Oh,” he says, sounding flustered, and if it weren’t for the blood loss she thinks that he might have blushed.

“Yeah I just, you know, I gotta disinfect it and – “

“Right, no yeah, it’s all good, I just – “

“ – It’s not like I hated that, I mean the whole, handholding thing, everything else kind of sucked but – “

“ – Right, of course. Sorry, kinda forgot you had the whole… Professional doctor thing.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, maybe not professional, nothing really seemed professional about it. Pretty gruesome if you ask me.”

“Buddy, you ain’t seen nothing yet. B-But hopefully you won’t, because yeah it was… Gross.”

She’s sure her face must be burning. If he asks, she’ll pass it off as sunburn, but he’s also looking pretty embarrassed at that whole mess, so she’s probably in the clear.

“Tell me if it hurts,” she murmurs, quieter than she intended. She lifts up a wet rag and starts dabbing gently at his torso, clearing away the dried blood and dirt. He winces a few times and she takes care not to get directly into the wounds, but it’s overall easy.

The cleaning up afterwards was always slower, no matter the client, and she would really take her time with it. Rhys is no different; she swipes away the rivulets of blood that had trickled down his hips, pleased at the site of creamy skin that greets her. The intimacy of it all gives her pause, halting her movements momentarily, but she can’t let it get in the way of Rhys’ recovery.

Besides… There’s nothing wrong with admiring the body of a patient. _Right?_ She wonders briefly if that’s the kind of stuff they teach in medical school.

“This might sting a bit,” she warns, bringing out her container of hydrogen peroxide.

Rhys snorts. “Please,” he says, sounding weirdly confident, “after all that, I’m pretty sure I can handle some st- _Ow, fuck_!”

“I told you it would sting.”

He doesn’t even give that a response, just looking a bit cranky and sheepish. His stomach twitches as she applies it to his broken skin, and she goes to poke him in the side to see if he’s ticklish, but decides not to at the last second. There’s always time for that later, though.

“Up and at ‘em,” she exclaims, giving him some space to lean up properly. “I need to do the bandages now so I gotta get all the way around.”

He makes a noise of annoyance, perturbed by just the thought of moving, and winces as he gets up properly. She places her arm on his shoulder to guide him upwards, until he’s sitting up and she can start applying the bandages.

“Hold that,” she tells him, placing the start of the roll at his side, and when he holds it in place she starts winding it around his stomach. The roll goes from her left hand to her right one, left, right, left right. It becomes a comfortable pattern that she gets lost in, and with each wraparound of the bandages she leans in close to Rhys. Her cheek accidentally brushes his pecs, and she keeps her head ducked down to hide the furious blush on her face.

Rhys stays as still as he can, and has his hands stuck up in the air awkwardly, shirt mostly torn, covering only the very top of his chest and his sleeves. She can imagine him complaining about it later. She imagines that Fiona and Sasha will be thankful that he’ll have to wear something besides Hyperion clothing.

“Okie dokie,” she hums under her breath in a sing-song voice. “Almost done here.”

“Do you remember where the caravan is?” From his voice, she can very much tell that _he_ does not.

“Umm…”

“Great. Maybe we’ll come across some more friendly psychos and they can help guide us back to the others.”

There’s silence for a moment, interrupted by Patch and her confusion.

“What…? Rhys, why would a psycho help us out?”

“Oh my _God_.”

She laughs at his irritation, and then realises that she’s reached the end of the bandages. She leans back to admire her work, smoothing a hand down his hips and stomach, before Rhys clears his throat and she remembers that there’s an actual human under those wrappings. She doesn’t really know what to say, so she just gives him a final pat on the waist and goes to attach a safety pin.

She leans in, fiddling with the pin and trying her hardest not to accidentally poke him. He really doesn’t need any more injuries. Rhys must see her struggling, because he lowers an arm and holds his hand out. “Give it here,” he tells her, and she obliges even though she probably would have gotten it eventually. She waits for him to get it, very aware of how close they are and how the only thing separating her from his bare chest is a mostly ripped shirt and some too-thin bandages.

“Here you go,” he says, pulling her out of her reverie. He holds out the pin, too small in his hands, and she takes it gratefully. She curls her arms around his waist, only remembering that she could’ve just asked him to turn around _after_ she leaned in, and goes to clipping the bandages in place.

“ _Aanndd_ … Done!” As she moves back, she lets her hands trail behind her gently, fingertips soft against his slender waist. Rhys seems to shudder at that, which makes her brow furrow in concern.

“You okay there, Rhys?”

“Yeah,” he says, maybe a bit too quickly. “Yeah, just really not looking forward to the walk.”

She hums in agreement, smiling at the way he closes his eyes in exasperation, and is hit with the sudden urge to lean up and plant a kiss right on his jawline. Heat curls in her gut, because his face is right there, only a few inches above her, and it would be so easy to just lean up a bit on her knees, and press her lips up against his throat. Maybe he would just think it’s some weird Pandoran custom. _Oh yeah, Rhys, all the doctors give their patients kisses on the cheek, and jaw, and sometimes on the neck. Does Hyperion do it differently?_

“We should probably get going, right?” Rhys’ voice startles her, especially since his mouth is right next to her ear. “The others might start thinking we’ve been killed.”

_Hmm. Kisses might have to wait for another time._

“Yeah, we don’t want that getting infected.” She gets up and brushes off her pants, helping Rhys stand up. He winces, looking sick for a second, but after a second of breathing he manages to stand on his own as Patch cleans up her equipment. _Side note: next time, make sure to bring more anaesthetic with you._

Rhys surveys the area around them, and he must find something good because after a minute, his shoulders slump forward in relief. “I recognise that cliff over there,” he says, squinting off into the distance. “Which means the caravan must be somewhere near there. It’s kinda far but the others are probably on the lookout for us already. This is going to be a piece of cake.”

Patch picks her coat up off the ground, shaking it off. It gets off a fair amount of the dust and dirt, but there’s the occasional bloodstain, and it’s going to need a serious washing. She gets her satchels and pockets all sorted, wringing out the wet cloths as best as she can, before she turns to face the pile of shrapnel glinting in the sunlight.

She digs a hole in the dirt with her foot and haphazardly kicks the metal into it, until its half-buried but at least out of the way. Sure, it isn’t the safest way of disposing shrapnel, but hey. She’s had a pretty difficult day, and the past hour has left her feeling tired, and she couldn’t care that much if some psycho stumbled upon it and decided it would make a tasty snack. That’s not her problem.

She turns to face Rhys, finally ready to go. Her eyes linger on the way he winces with every step, and it’ll be a matter of minutes before his bandages start turning red again. All they have to do is make it to the caravan, though. She can think about what comes afterwards later on.

She tries not to think about how, if it were anyone else, she might not have put herself through all of that. The hand holding, letting him yell even if it distracted her. She shakes her head, deciding that thinking about it at all will just give her a headache.

The two of them set off together, as the sun starts creeping further beyond the horizon, and they’re bathed in a rich orange glow. She feels her arm brush against Rhys’, and decides to throw caution to the wind when she wraps her fingers around his wrist, just like he had done earlier. He pauses a bit, his footsteps slowing down, but once their palms are pressed together, he picks up the pace and doesn’t say a word.

Patch keeps her eyes forward, focused on the caravan a fair distance away. (The last thing they need is to be attacked again.) But occasionally, she’ll glance over at Rhys, and see how colour has crept back into his cheeks, a dusting of soft pink all over his face.

She squeezes his hand, and he squeezes back. Her heart hammers away in her chest, and she can’t help but smile.


End file.
